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Independence Day was one of the greatest Sci-Fi films for it’s memorable characters and moments that were inspired by other great works that came before it. Independence Day: Resurgence however is a by the books sequel that lacks most of the charm that defined the original.

Set 20 years after the original film, the international community has come together and establish the Earth Defense Force while humanity has been rebuilt using the technology of the invaders. The peace is shattered when an alien mother ship arrives, knocks out all of earths defenses then lay waste to half the world in only a few moments. With time running out, Earth must lunch a counter offense against the invaders before humanity is exterminated.

Independence Day: Resurgence starts out strong by taking viewers to the post-War of 96 world by reacquainting us with familiar characters along with introducing the new characters. Then when the invaders arrive all the action and destruction is either rushed or poorly paced. Finally it ends with a battle that too is also poorly paced while themes and elements are just forced into the story.

With this kind of pacing and setup, everything that made Independence Day a classic has been lost. Resurgence ends up lacking the awe inspiring world destruction or memorable battle sequence.

Also; Independence Day had one of the most inspirational and uplifting speeches in a movie while Resurgence has no such moment. It however tries to make up for it by having Whitmore sacrifice himself save humanity.

Not helping is that Resurgence relies too much on CGI for its visual effects. The once frightening invaders (brought to life with practical special effects) look less intimating when created with CGI. The one destruction sequence also fails to have a real impact thanks to its dependence on CGI.

What it lacks in pacing and visual appeal, it makes up for it with its story along with the return of many of the original characters. The new cast are just your stereotypical heroes while the original cast preserve what made them unique (which works out very well). The story is both a perfect revenge tale while setting up for a proper followup that would allow Earth to take the fight to the invaders.

Independence Day: Resurgence is not the classic followup that many were expecting but fans will enjoy the return of their heroes from the 90’s.

The pacing was terrible, the new characters were poorly developed and too many, there was too much action and little build-up, the score was repetitive and odd at times, and it lacked a certain silly charm that the first one had. But it satisfied me enough.

In a way it felt like it was toeing the line with the camp and ham of the original and a more serious space opera sense but missed the the latter’s mark a bit.

I will have to say, however, that what I saw of the Unified Earth, the reversed engineered military, and even the call backs to the original cast was well done. It just doesn’t save the movie from a pretty solid meh.

Anyone else a little bit annoyed about the shoehorning of the Asian (really Chinese subplot)? She could have been characterized a lot more instead of being an obvious shoutout to the Chinese market. Do the shout out but don’t insult a decent foriegn actor with a token part.